The Filmic Journey

A few months ago a fellow named Jo Spalburg contacted me on facebook looking for Caribbean films to enter into Sankofa UK television film festival. I pointed him to a short film produced by my business partner Robin Chin and I, (Heart Shaped Box) and a documentary done by David Johnson (Just Action).

Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but I heard it was well received. A month later, I get a call from Jo and he is heading to Jamaica for one day﻿ and wants to meet up. I met up with him after work yesterday and had a great conversation about a distribution company, Media Partners International ltd. of which he is the Managing Director and his other distribution company, Caribbean Media Partners. Where MPI handles distributing European content to Jamaica, CMP is the reverse. They distribute and market Caribbean content to Europe and North America for filmmakers looking to break into those markets and they facilitate the sharing of content, including news, TV series and documentaries across the region in all Caribbean languages. English, Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese.

Needless to say this was all very interesting and we are already plotting ways to get into various markets as the local distribution sector is completely backward. He was taken aback when I told him we as filmmakers have to pay to put our content on TV here. It was a fact that took a while to sink in.

Through CMP he has a VOD platform called www.caribbe.tv. It is just starting out but they already have deals with Caribvision, Hype TV, RETV, JNN, Tempo and many more popular Caribbean stations.

Early days yet, but I am looking to see where this goes and what it will mean for strengthening the exposure of Caribbean content.